TABOR under pressure: How “think of the children” messaging is shaping Colorado’s education debate

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Note the “won’t someone think of the children?!” framing

I don’t think there are any specifics yet, but as of last week, there were plenty of rumors about the Democrats taking another stab at TABOR, this time in conjunction with their paymasters the teacher’s unions.

If you read the Sun article linked first below, you’ll see one possible form this effort could take: some way or another, tying lifting the TABOR cap to directing money into education.

Doing so would obviously enable supporters to frame opposition as being cold hearted: won’t someone please think of the children?

I have discussed framing before, and the best way to counter it is to be aware of the framing, presenting counterarguments that acknowledge how it’s a distraction.

Toward that end, I wanted to point out some things to remember and possibly share with others if you are advocating or the topic comes up.

I want to remind you first that the oft-repeated progressive chestnut (you’ll see it more than once in the Sun article of course) that we don’t fund our education in Colorado adequately is a misnomer. When you look at the way the advocacy groups who claim this calculate things, they expand the idea of per pupil funding until they get the answer they want, namely that Colorado is somehow behind. Common tricks are things like including some metric for cost of living in the calculus.

The other thing you need to be aware of is that Colorado gives more and more and more money to education all the time. Funding is going up and up, from a variety of sources, but outcomes aren’t really tracking. Have we indulged in enough magical thinking yet to come ‘round to the conclusion that perhaps throwing money at education won’t fix it? Maybe that next dollar will do the trick.

Lastly, I want you to note that simply putting more money into education in no way guarantees that the money goes to where it will have an impact–to classrooms.

I have some ideas as to how we can direct money into education to improve it, but these things involve (see the second post today for an example) being thoughtful in how we give that extra money and requiring it go into the classroom not just be given to districts so it can bloat administration, be a sop to teachers unions, etc.

I will update as I hear specifics on any measures like this. The lesson to take away from here, regardless of whether any measure as alluded to in the article below becomes reality or not, is to not let someone else run the narrative.

Simply tying it to a popular idea, putting “good words” behind it, does not make it good policy. Think beyond the rules of thumb advocates want you to use in categorizing things.

https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/14/colorado-ballot-measure-education-funding-cea/

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An example of where money COULD help education

In the previous post today, I talked about how indiscriminate spending on education, while seemingly a good thing, has not worked out well for Colorado. It feels to me like a bottomless pit: no matter how much more public money we put in, we don’t seem to see results, and we are continually asked for more.

While I don’t think spraying money on schools works, I want to take the opposite tack in this post and take about a way that I think money could help in education.

In my years as a teacher, there are a few things that tend to stick out as obviously harmful to students and their learning. One of the biggest is teacher turnover. Students do well with continuity, I think it’s a net benefit when they see the same teachers in the building year after year (and possibly have the same teachers more than once). Beyond that, the craft of teaching is one that can take a while to learn. I was a bad teacher at the start, and only became fair to middlin’ after about 3 semesters of teaching. I am not unique. Good teachers are made (consciously by deciding one wants to do well); making them takes time.

Teacher retention, whether that’s keeping someone in the job past year 3 or past year 15 is important.

Money is a factor. It’s always a factor. I think it is wrongheaded, however, to think that money is the only factor. If you know a teacher, ask them whether they do the job for money. As yourself whether you do your job solely because of the money.

Side by side with salary is quality of life. When people choose jobs and when people stay in jobs it’s not just how big the numbers are on their paycheck, it’s how big they are relative to a host of other factors. For me, I tolerate the lower paycheck because of the blocks of time I have off to pursue other interests (plus, quite frankly, I love teaching). For someone else it might be a love of teaching plus a job that allows them to “perform” a daily play.

One of the big degraders of quality of life for a teacher is their working conditions, one of those being whether or not (and how much) of your work has to go home with you.

As an example, the loss of a planning period during the day is a big one for many. Not only does this mean a day without the ability to decompress from students, it also often means work that could have been done at the job now goes home (or one stays late). For me, when I taught high school, I often lost my planning time due to having to substitute for someone else.

The article linked at bottom talks about a novel plan in Denver Public Schools. They’re planning to contract with a private company that hires teachers in training to come and be substitutes. Putting aside the privatization aspect, this was an intriguing idea. Of course, the DPS union candidates had heartburn, but whether or not it’s a private company, a sure source of substitutes is a good thing.

I think it’s a good investment toward retaining teachers, and thus improving educational outcomes. This allows teachers time off, it allows the other teachers to keep their planning periods. This improves the quality of life for teachers.

What do you think? If you’re an educator, what other kinds of quality of life things do you think would help with teacher retention? Or maybe you have a completely different take. Feel free to add to the comments.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2025/12/20/denver-district-contracting-with-teach-start-for-substitute-teachers

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